Attorney To BCC: "We are more than 10% in population deviation between our least populated district and most populated district."

 Nevermind the sour grapes, gobldygook gibberish, and the misinformation and lies from last week's "Clown" hall meetings by D2 (and I say "clown" to describe the D2 office staff--Doug, his secretary, and his intern---- that put these sparsely attended events on--not the concerned citizens that attended or EMR staff that professionally supported these "events")----Nevermind any of that noise.  This, below, is the important factual information citizens and constituents need to know regarding the "why" we are redistricting now instead of waiting and also why McMillan and the Voting Rights Act  REQUIRE that we maintain a minority-majority district.  

Forget about the lies

Get the FACTs in this email that just arrived in our inboxes this morning:

Proposed Schedule for Redistricting Will Be Discussed Tomorrow Morning by the BOCC

 As requested by a majority of the board members at our recent committee of the whole, our attorney Alison Rogers has emailed board members a tentative timeline for completing our redistricting in a compressed fashion---- due to the expected late arrival of our census data from the Census Bureau.

This is putting us in a position where we must complete 6-8 months worth of work in essentially less than four months.

For my part, I don't believe we should rush it.  

The statute plainly states that for counties the redistricting shall be completed "from time to time" but it does not state that it must be done in the first year following the census data being released.  The caveat that we as commissioners around the state face is that we can only, statutorily, complete our redistricting in odd numbered years.  That is codified in statute.  So, if we can't complete it this year, it has to carry over to 2023.  Conversely---the state representatives and senators do not have this same odd-year only redistricting restriction.  In fact, they will do their January through March early session next year, and then work the rest of the year to carefully finish their new boundaries in the fall of 2022----AFTER their elections--giving them a full nearly two year cushion until their next election in their "new districts."  They ARE allowed to do their redistricting in even years.  So it will be very, very comfortable, workable, and convenient for them.

Not so for us.

Given the historical civil rights era rulings that dictate that we in Escambia County must have at least one minority-majority district--our redistricting must take into consideration the "before and after" demographics of any switching of precincts and districts; it's not simply a mathematical, formulaic calculation as it is in other places.  If we rush it and get it wrong, we can be challenged in court and that's a can of worms we don't need... 

I know this, because I'm the only one on the dais that was an elected official in 2011 the last time the BCC and school district did this, redistricting, after the 2010 census.  And we did it right and took the time necessary and importantly--we got our data on time, in February.   Yet it still it took us a solid 7 months to do it right, ultimately completing it in September of 2011.

So no, I'm not going to accede to a self-imposed, self-generated timeline when there is no statutory requirment nor a reason to do this.  Especially this year with COVID-19 throwing everything off.   If we can get it done efficiently this year, I'm willing to try.  But I won't rush it for my vote,  not for anyone,  because doing it right is much more important than acquiesing to someone's artificial deadlines which are surely driven by political agendas.

So we will see how it goes, and if we actually get our data in August from the Census Bureau.

Meanwhile--see the attorney's proposed, draft timeline below:

How Did Escambia County Get to Single Member Elected Districts for County Commissioners?

This subject came up the other night at the County Commission Meeting.  Several speakers asked the following question:

How come individual commissioners are only voted in by citizens that live within their individual commissioners' districts?  How come the entire county can't vote for every district commissioner, like it is done in Santa Rosa County (and all the other counties in America)?

As was discussed in the meeting, this is because of a 1970's era lawsuit that was successful and that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

This screenshot of an article from the 1984 Pensacola Journal lays out the chronology of how this practice came to be locally...Interesting......